Book times are here

"Why buy that book when you can get it from the library?" my parents would say. In accordance with their advice (now, also approved by a Nobel laureate), the bulk of my reading came from my school and neighbourhood libraries. And guess what I found in my (software) organisation's library - The Penguin History of Early India!

Having started earning and all, I let myself more leeway these days on buying the stuff. My choice tends to be:

• Nonfiction on subjects that interest me or
• Fiction I don't tire of after a single read. The first read would come from a library of course!
  

And it's a good time for book-lovers in Bangalore. Just a couple of weeks before was the Bangalore Book Fair and now there is the Strand Book Sale. For the former, booksellers from different parts of the country came together at the Palace Grounds. I got a couple of Telugu books that I would not have normally found outside Andhra; the History of Tamil Literature from the Sahitya Akademi stall at a 50% discount; and a Sanskrit primer from Motilal Banarsidass.

As I was going around the place, I heard a recording of Purandaradasa compositions in the Tanjore Namasankirtana style, which immediately took my fancy. The sellers turned out to be Giri Traders of Madras.

The Strand Book Sale that I visited yesterday offers (the Sale is still on) considerable discounts, starting at 20% and going upto 80. I bought a P.G. Wodehouse (Uncle Fred) omnibus at 25% less. However I could not find the collection of Somerset Maugham's short stories that I was looking for, or anything much on Western classical music.

Still, if you are in Bangalore and love books, don't miss the Strand Sale!